And So Another Day Passes

Thank you for sharing this MrsVT.  It is 3 months since I lost my lovely soul mate of 30 years and it has been the toughest time of my life by far, as I imagine it is for all of us on this site. I joined the site because I had breast cancer, mastectomy and chemo last year. I am lucky that I have come out of it very well, medically. But throughout that time I was caring for my partner with advanced PD and doing that was my focus and my purpose in life. So I've lost my “job” as well as my companion. I am devastated by Stuart’s death but I know he would want me to live as well as I can in my new circumstances.  I also believe life is a precious gift and on good days I am determined not to waste it. I arrange all sorts of things to make sure I see somebody every day even for a short time. Other days I just have to go with the sorrow and feel the pain and I stumble around in the maze.

You and others are very generous sharing your experiences and coping strategies and I realise that mostly I have been taking things that help me from what people say on here and giving little back. So you have inspired me to share bits that I have picked up from my reading and podcasts and counselling that sometimes help me.

As we know, everyone’s experience is different but I hope some of the following will resonate:

You can’t rush grief

Focus on yourself unapologetically, never mind what others say or think

Your healing is your responsibility

It’s not what happens to us that defines us, it’s how we choose to deal with it

Remind yourself you did the best you could at the time. He/she knew they were loved

Trust that you will find your own way

Sending you my very best wishes and hugs xx

Hi Arty Girl, your observations are interesting and helps with self-reflection. My husband passed eight months ago from kidney cancer. It was very fast, and he had few symptoms. As you know, we all have choice. This has been my approach, as I made a vow to guide and protect our adult children. The hardest one for me to adopt is, “Trust that you will find your own way.” This is the hardest, because the truth is that part of me doesn’t want to. I want to be with him. In a sense, I am finding my own way. Seeing friends, going to the theatre, running the home, walking the dog, etc. People say to me, ‘You are so strong”. “You have achieved so much.” Yes, all of that is true, and I am a positive person by nature. At the moment, I just can’t see a way that I will ever be happy again. I have fleeting moments of happiness, but feeling loved and valued by my darling has gone. Sending hugs to all. Kate.xxx

Reading this made me cry Kate because you sound so like me. I too have a positive nature and get encouraging comments from friends telling me I’m doing so well. But exactly as you said being loved by the person who knew me better than anyone else in the world is something I’ll never have again and it hurts so much. I remind myself that many people never have anything like the close relationship we had together and I am very lucky to have had that for 30 years. But it’s the loss of all that love that makes it so very painful. It is comforting to know that other people like you do understand in a way that our friends can’t. Thank you for sharing. I think I need to pour myself a glass of wine…big hugs xxx

Oh dear, I am so sorry I made you cry. That is the last thing you need. We were married for 36 years, but together for 40 years. He was a gentleman, and told me that ‘I was everything to him”. I felt the same. We always made time to have fun together. Travelling, pubs, walking our border collie, socialising with friends. He had a great sense of humour, and a great warmth of personality. It is so very hard to be without him. I am crying now, sorry. Kate.xxx

Oh dear what a pair we are.  The tears are flowing here again. Your man sounds lovely. No wonder he’s left a big gap.  Mine was too. Like you, we were everything to each other. I missed him so much tonight. I paint and I’ve been in the studio all afternoon after months of not feeling like it. Normally I would show him what I’d been working on and it was awful him not being there to discuss it. Even when he was very unwell he was a great support and I knew I could trust his judgement. He wouldn’t say it was good when it wasn’t!  This grieving business is so much harder than I ever imagined. But having said that I had quite a nice day today out shopping with a friend this morning.  We just have to keep pressing on, one day at a time.  I do sleep well at night so that’s something. Hope you do too Kate.  Big hugs xxx

Dear Arty Girl

So sorry for your loss of your beautiful soul mate. So you paint. Strangely it was the one thing I wanted to take up doing after my husband passed 14 months ago. He was also my soulmate of over thirty years and was a dancer all his life up until he collapsed on the way home from a performance and then died in hospital 4 months later. I feel everything about this tragedy I can only express in paint. Although I haven't painted in forty years (since school) my first efforts have been ok. My daughter bought me paints and a sketch pad for Christmas - she is a painter / architect and my son is an actor/dancer so we have all been obsessed with art all our life. I think noone could have looked at more painting than me but I never thought to paint myself until now. Even as a young teen I would sit in famous painters's studios and watch them - not to learn how to paint - but just to show my support and encouragement for such a noble artform.

Yes, that other person with such refined judgement who knows us since we were almost kids is a huge loss. But I just have to think he is still here, reading this now and rolling his eyes, but still understanding. I think I miss him more as each day goes by but this is also all the mystery of life I suppose. That sense of this sort of loss I never understood before so it is something new and I think how naive I was not to realise it before. I think my husband really experienced this sense of loss in the months before he died but I was so busy juggling this rollercoaster that I didn't get to quite experience it with him.

Take care and thanks for your words. Keep painting! x Florence

Dear Florence, thank you for sharing this, it was lovely for me to know that someone else can relate to what I’m going through. I have started painting again but have had a bit of a lull when it felt too much effort - reading your post was like a gentle nudge to get going again! At the weekend it was my birthday, the first “occasion” since my partner died 3 months ago. I wasn’t looking forward to it but I went to Wales where my lovely sister had organised a small family get together for me. I felt surrounded by love and was surprised that I had a happy time though did shed some tears of course. Tonight I have come back home to an empty house and that is hard. No one to share things with and chew things over with.  Luckily I do have 2 lovely cats and they are a great comfort and seem to sense when I’m really sad. One of them is on my lap as I write this.

Stuart and I loved going to exhibitions together and that is another thing I miss. My taste in art developed with our shared experiences. Well done on taking up painting after all those years! It was lovely to read that you manage to express your feelings through your art. My paintings are not very “profound” and don’t  obviously expressing emotion like “The Scream!” but I do get lost in them and that feels good for me. Another thing I have done since Stuart died is to join a gym. I had never been in one in my whole life but doing something physical helps me and I am trying to establish new routines. I have my moments when I think “What’s the point of my life now” as it feels like I’ve lost my role and my main focus which was doing my absolute best to look after him and get the best care for him. But I know he would want me to make the most of my remaining life and I think I survived my cancer for a purpose. I am open to see what happens next.

Thank  you again Florence. I will think of you when I go to the studio tomorrow xx

Hi there,

My friends at our local cafe suggested I went along to their Crafty Club not long after my beautiful Valen was ripped from me. 
It’s a very small group, up to 7 at its maximum, of people going through some form of mental pain. Theres a lad with autism, a lady who tried to end her life, a lady who nursed her mother through dementia etc. 

We do different art and crafts. Some draw or paint or crochet or collage or do diamond art. Some of us do different things as the mood takes us. 
We sit and craft, talk, eat cake and drink coffee. 
We talk about our lives, our hardships, our hurdles. 
We also talk about what’s made us laugh, our goals, what we’ve watched. 

There is no judgement. No censure. No right or wrong.

It’s one of the best things I have taken on since he left. 
My counselling is good, different. I tell her things I wouldn’t eat of telling the group. 
But this group is my best help (apart from here course!} 

And I now dabble at home. 
Watercolours, acrylics, pencils. 
Splash and splodge about, getting as much on me as the paper. 
Or trying to capture the essence of my Valen. How I describe him. 
As a silver tree with branches reaching out and entwining those he loves and who love him. 
Sheltering us. Encouraging us. 
I am also gathering pictures and items to create a giant collage of Everything Valen. 
It will be a continuous work in progress as Valens multiple legacies will never end.

hugs to you all xx

That’s lovely. I have all of my art stuff upstairs.I don’t know what I am waiting for. I do watercolours and fine tip drawing. My darling loved me painting and drawing. When we stayed in The West Country I could paint the scenery from our holiday home. I think it is the sad associated with it. Hugs to all. Kate.xxx

Valen would think it hilarious and faintly embarrassing that I am planning his collage